mighty voice has spoken, and in obedience to the divine behest the appointed labor is begun. Sublime and expansive truths disclosed to the freed spirit, are revealed as the basis of an illimitable structure. The unseen toilers are at work. They are preparing the way for the accomplishment of a great design. They are gathering and arranging the elements of which the temple of truth is to be constructed, and on the deep foundation of eternal principles, the beautiful structure is rising to the sky. Men have sought to rear this temple by employing earthly implements, by building on false foundations, and making use of perishable materials. They have sought to operate on the mind through the agency of fear; they have erected towering theories on the basis of fallible writings, and they have piled up huge masses of uncongenial doctrines on the narrow platform of sectarian theology. Therefore have men labored unwisely in the greatest of all works; and the succession of unsuccessful efforts which they have made to build up the truth, may serve as an indication of the fact that the means employed are inadequate to the end proposed. In the work of establishing the divine reality, it is wise for men to act as followers instead of leaders--as workmen instead of directors,-listening to the still voice of wisdom that issues from a higher sphere. Lo! the toilers of heaven invite the workmen of earth to labor with them. Let the invitation be welcomed and obeyed-let the instructions furnished in wisdom be received, and then will the brightest hopes of the philanthropist, the divinest dreams of the prophet, and the highest inspirations of the bard, be all concentrated and interwoven in one great reality-introduced into the temple of immortal truth, where both mortals and angels shall worship forever. R. P. A.

NEW-YORK, July 15, 1853./

THE

BIRTH OF THE UNIVERSE.

CHAPTER I.

THE BEGINNING.

A subject of vast and majestic proportions is presented to the view of the interior mind. To see the Universe in its grand, original birth-to stand on some lofty mount of spiritual light, and look back through the dim vista of ages to the period when Chaos began to be resolved into form and order, is the glorious and ennobling gift of the soul in its expanded and illuminated condition. The spirit possesses within its inmost germ the powers of interior perception, which are not dependent on the limited vision of the external eye; and hence, when these powers have been properly exercised and developed, attaining thus a supremacy over the earth-born ties of flesh and sense, the soul is enabled to penetrate the mantle of mystery which has clothed the shadowed regions of the Past, and disclose the profound realities which embrace the origin and birth of the Universe.

In this revealment it will be the design of the author to make a constant appeal to the reasoning and intuitive faculties of the human being, while the truths which may be presented find their only proper basis in the immutable and divine principles of Nature. It is not wise to rear the superstructure of any system on the foundation of human opinions and prejudices; and hence the object to be attained of imparting truth to the world, will not be sought in any compromise with the superstitions of by-gone ages, or the prevailing errors of the present era. The fact is sufficiently evident and can not be denied, that the world has been chiefly dependent on mere traditional and mythological accounts for the knowledge which it claims to possess on the subject of Cosmogony. Therefore, with all the fanciful shapes of thought which have been evoked from the gloom of the ancient Night, and with all the revered repositories of sacred lore to which men have been accustomed to resort for wisdom, the philosophy of Creation continues to present a vast and interesting field of investigation, in whose wide expanse the soul may bask in light celestial and cull flowers of never-fading beauty. Let, then, the embodied spirits of earth, listening to the voice of Wisdom, enter by this avenue into the courts of the Divine Temple.

Deep after deep is unfolded to the soul as it gazes into the unexplored abyss of Time, and age after age bears its perceptions far away into the unfathomable bosom of the Past. Make thyself strong, O soul, that thou mayst be able to embrace in thy conceptions the Original Germ, from which all outward life, and thought, and being were created. But first it is necessary to pass within the external vail of matter-to penetrate beneath all outward and superficial forms, since these

constitute only the visible crust of creation, and are simply a combination of primitive elements which emanate from a more interior source. Then, entering still farther into the sanctuary of Being, the spirit may perceive matter as it begins to be resolved into attenuated and refined forms, which at last seem to almost lose themselves, as it were, in a world of ethereal and impalpable substance. Following now the path of light that leads to the inmost chambers of the Divine Mansion, it leaves the misty regions of material existence, and, soaring along the radiant archway of the Infinite, ascends to yet sublimer hights of being, until it views at last, with faint and wearied vision, the realm of the original and uncreated Life. In this interior realm, the physical senses of man would have no action, as they would fail to comprehend the surrounding reality. The light of the inner world falls not on the retina of the outward eye; the gentle breathings of divine life which are ever blending here in celestial music, create no vibration that is felt by the external ear; but this world, which is the soul of the material creation, is the world of eternal and imperishable substance, whose presence only the senses of the spirit could discover, but from whose germ all exterior forms have had their birth.

To this primary and most interior source, the soul must repair to commence its investigations with respect to the origin of existing things. It must be apparent to every reasoning mind, that the external effects which are perceptible to the physical senses, must proceed from the action of some invisible and superior cause. Thus the progressive growth and development of vegetable bodies--the unfolding of the tree, the flower, or the plant, demonstrates the operation of an unseen principle in connection with refined and imponderable elements of mat